Latest / Scripture Central / Delivered by the Lamb | Exodus 7-13 | Come Follow Me 2026 | John Hilton III | Apr 6-12

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Delivered by the Lamb | Exodus 7-13 | Come Follow Me 2026 | John Hilton III | Apr 6-12 · Scripture Central

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Before we start the video today, I just wanted to let you know
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that there are so many resources that are available along with
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the videos for this course. For example, the PowerPoints
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that are used in each of these presentations are available at
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the course website, which you can see at the link in the
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description. It's John Hilton iii.com/finding
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Christ. There's lots of other resources,
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free books and articles, and we hope you'll take advantage of
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all of these resources. Egypt's entire system of order
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and worship collapses when faced with the living God of Israel.
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How does this help me in my life?
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Whatever you're building your life on, if it's not God, it is
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not going to last. And if I'm just going through
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the motions, I'm missing the mark.
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There is so much more, but if we focus on the one true God,
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everything falls into place. Imagine that you are 14 years
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old and you live in ancient Egypt.
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Tonight is not like any other night.
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Earlier in the day, you saw your father painting some blood over
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the doorway inside the house. Your mother is roasting a lamb
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and the smell fills the room. It's mixed with some flatbread
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that your mom hurriedly mixed together earlier today.
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You're sitting next to your older brother, who's the first
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born. He's quiet, clutching your
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hands. Everybody is waiting.
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You've been told that the blood will protect you.
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The night moves. You hear a piercing scream in
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the air, then another closer to your home.
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It sounds like death is moving. You clutch your brother's hand
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even tighter. Soon, though, the screams fade
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out. Death has passed you by.
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The blood was enough. This isn't just a story in
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Exodus. It's a pattern for our lives.
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The blood of Jesus Christ is enough.
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And the blood didn't just save the Israelites from death, it
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set them apart for life with Him.
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Today, as we study Exodus chapters 7 through 13, we'll see
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that we too are set apart by the blood of the Lamb for life in
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Christ. And we'll talk about this
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through five different lenses. First, freedom to worship.
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Now, you can't talk about Exodus without at least mentioning
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Charlton Heston's performance in the 10 Commandments.
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Do you remember 1 famous moment, Let my people go?
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I love this clip. Let my people go.
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But as Timothy Keller points out, it's only half the story.
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If you were to go to the actual verse of Scripture, you'd see
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that part of it's missing. The Lord says let my people go
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so they can worship me. Hollywood didn't include this
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second line in the film. This pattern occurs over and
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over and over again, continually.
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Got a saying, Let my people go so they can worship me.
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He says. How long will you refuse to
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submit to me? Let my people go so they can
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worship me. God wasn't just sending his
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chosen people out into the wilderness to wander aimlessly.
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He had a purpose for them, and that purpose was worship.
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It reminds me of something that Elder Bednar has frequently
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taught that to him, choose the right isn't called choose what
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you want when you will. It's choose the right for a
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reason. Elder Bednar said according to
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the Father's plan, we have received moral agency to seek
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after and act in accordance with eternal truth.
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True freedom isn't just about doing what we want, it's
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choosing to do what God wants us to do.
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God led the Israelites out of Egypt so that he could lead them
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into covenant. It's the same for us sometimes
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in our lives. I think I've got to get rid of
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these sins. I've got to free myself from the
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bondage of sin. There's some truth to that, but
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that's only part of the story. We're also going to worship.
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For those of you who think in terms of math, we might say that
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true freedom isn't just subtraction.
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What we leave behind, it's addition, who we're walking
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towards. It's not just leaving Egypt.
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It's meeting Christ at the mountain.
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That's why the Lord keeps saying over and over again, let my
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people go so they can worship me.
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Now I want to just pause for a moment.
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This is a simple concept, but I think it's powerful.
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What is this idea of not only leaving Egypt, but going towards
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worship? What does this mean for you in
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your life? So to me, worshiping is an
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everyday process. If I come become a little bit
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more like Jesus Christ tomorrow, and a little bit more and a
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little bit more those little increments, that's what true
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worship for me is, is to become like the being I am actually
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adoring. Thank you.
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Part of moving forward to worship Christ is to remember
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that we worship a God above all gods.
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Pharaoh is about to learn this the hard way, because in spite
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of Moses's repeated invitations, Pharaoh refuses to let his
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people go. The Pharaoh says, Who is the
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Lord? Why should I listen to him and
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let Israel go? I don't know the Lord and I will
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not let Israel go. Just think about that phrase.
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Who is the Lord? Pharaoh wasn't an atheist.
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It's not like he's saying he doesn't believe in God.
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He believes in lots of gods and he believes that his gods are
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more powerful than the Lord. Many Bible commentators have
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noticed that if you look at the different plagues that are about
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to happen, they almost seem to be challenging different
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Egyptian gods, showing that Moses is God is more powerful
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than any of them. For example, the first plague of
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turning the Nile into blood. The Nile was sacred, it was
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personified by an Egyptian God, and so when it was turned to
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blood, it signaled a disruption of life, turning normality into
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chaos. Or think of the second plague,
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swarms of frogs. Frogs were connected to the
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goddess of birth and were considered sacred.
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But God's in such an overwhelming number that what
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was once a sign of blessing becomes unbearable and we can
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keep going. The earth turns to lice, props a
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blow to gab the earth God as the plagues continue swarms or
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disease upon cattle striking the cow goddess, or boils on skin,
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which even affected Pharaoh's magicians.
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Pharaoh's magicians were supposed to be a conduit to the
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Egyptian gods of healing, but they couldn't overcome the
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boils. We keep going, hailstorms,
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swarms of locust destroying crops, showing dominion over the
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gods of sky and harvest. One of the most prominent
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Egyptian gods was the sun. And so the 9th plague.
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Thick darkness confronts RA, showing the power of the God of
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Israel. Finally came the death of the
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first born. Pharaoh himself was seen as
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divine, but even his household could not escape the hands of
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the Lord. And so these plagues show that
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Egypt's entire system of order and worship collapses when faced
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with the living God of Israel. And it's almost like God meant
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this as a direct challenge. In fact, in Exodus chapter 12,
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verse 12, God says plainly, I will execute judgment against
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all the gods of Egypt, for I am the Lord.
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The God of Moses is not just one God among many.
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He is the God above all other gods.
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And we might think to ourselves, well, boy, this is a good story.
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But lucky for me, I don't worship any frog goddesses or
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cow goddesses. So I'm probably, I'm probably
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good to go. But in our society, we also live
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among idols. We might worship Wall Street, or
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having as much fun as we can, or portraying the right image.
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These can all be good things, but taken to an extreme, they
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can become idols. We don't bow to golden statues,
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but we might scroll through reels like their scripture.
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What do the plagues mean for us today?
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They remind us that whatever you're building your life on, if
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it's not God, it is not going to last.
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There's only one God. If we focus on anything else,
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everything falls apart. But if we focus on the one true
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God, everything falls into place.
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Now, as Pharaoh's trying to navigate all of these trials, he
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turns to what I want to call crisis repentance.
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What kind of repentance is crisis repentance?
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Well, it's an echo that happens over and over again.
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We see a story like this. There'll be a plague and Pharaoh
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will say to Moses, plead with the Lord to take the frogs away,
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and I will let your people go. Then once the plague ends, the
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very next line is something like, but Pharaoh harden his
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heart and would not let the people go over and over again,
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Pharaoh says, please, please, please make it stop.
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Then I'll change. But each time God shows mercy,
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Pharaoh goes back to business as usual.
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Now, a little textual detail. You might have noticed as you
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were reading these chapters that there's sometimes where it says
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something like God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
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And you think to yourself, well, that's not right.
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This is one of those times where I love having the Joseph Smith
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translation. So for example, here we see that
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in Exodus chapter 10, verse one. But if you look at footnote A,
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it takes us to the Joseph Smith translation for he, Pharaoh,
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hath hardened his heart. So the basic pattern is that
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there's a plague. Pharaoh says, please make the
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plague stop. God makes it stop.
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Pharaoh says, JK, I'm not letting the people go.
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And we're right back to where we're going.
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And we might think, oh, yeah, that's a problem for Pharaoh.
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But what about in our own lives and in society today?
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I remember, for example, right after 911, there was a huge
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upsurge in church attendance. But within a few months,
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attendance levels had returned to normal.
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It usually takes more than a crisis to bring people to true
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repentance. But sometimes repentance in a
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crisis does work. Consider a story of an 18 year
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old young man serving in World War Two.
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I'm talking about the person on the far left of the screen here.
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He was in Okinawa in a foxhole. Shells were exploding all around
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him. The smell of gunpowder was in
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the air. He prayed to God and said, if I
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live through this, I will give the rest of my life to you.
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He survived. He came home.
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He served a mission, I went to college, eventually became a
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member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.
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So I have to ask myself, what's the difference between Pharaoh
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and Elder Maxwell? Why did one fall back while the
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other stayed true? And I don't know that we can
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completely answer this question, but I'd love to hear any
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thoughts you have. What do you think?
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Elder Maxwell had an understanding of God and had a
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testimony of the reality of God and that he is our savior.
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Well, that influence and affected how he conducted
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himself after the crisis. Whereas with Pharaoh, he didn't
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understand God, didn't believe in him.
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So his repentance was very fleeting.
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So if. You were to kind of sum up maybe
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a principle that, OK, if we took that idea and kind of summed it
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up as a principle that we could follow in our lives that would
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help us maybe be more like Elder Maxwell than Pharaoh.
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How would you phrase that? You know, follow and act upon
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your conviction and testimony of the Savior that you know it
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leads to action. Thank you.
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And what I get from it, I think there's humility and softness of
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the heart willing to bend your will to God and let him take
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over. Thank you.
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So, I mean, here's a hard question to think about.
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So if I'm in the middle of crisis repentance, how do I
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soften my heart? How do I get to be more like
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Elder Maxwell and less like Pharaoh?
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Well, I had a personal experience that helped me learn
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something kind of like this. I had seven different surgeries
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and I started getting really scared like, OK, I may not make
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it. And that's when I started to
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think, can I meet my God with his Stony heart?
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Can I really meet him? Then I started thinking deeper
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in my soul, who am I? And that's when I started to
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change and my Stony heart became soft and I started to be
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grateful for all that I had and for my life, good or bad,
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whatever it turned out, I was grateful and and started seeing
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joy. Wow.
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Thank you for sharing that with us.
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I don't know all of the reasons for the difference, but I wonder
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if part of it had to do with Elder Maxwell's willingness to
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give his life to God to turn his will completely over.
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But whatever the reason for the difference between Elder Maxwell
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and Pharaoh, I think this contrast reminds us that
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obedience is tested in times of comfort.
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It's easy to obey when our back is to the wall, when the rent is
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due, when there's no hope. But when things are going well.
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What do we do then? Do we remember that soft heart?
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Faithfulness is proven in the calm?
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Elder Neil A Maxwell taught we are in the Lord's hands and
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should surrender to the Lord on His terms, not ours.
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It is total surrender, no negotiating.
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It is yielding with no preconditions.
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If we truly trust God, why not yield to His loving omniscience,
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whom we're really marked with the blood of the Lamb?
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We fully surrender ourselves to God.
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So as the plagues continue to intensify, the Lord called on
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the Israelites to celebrate 2 festivals that Jewish people
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still celebrate today. One of them, You're probably
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familiar with the Feast of Passover.
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But before we talk about Passover, let's talk about the
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Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now, you probably already know
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that leaven just means yeast and it's a key ingredient in making
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bread. It's what causes the bread to
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rise. But the Lord said on this
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occasion, the bread you eat must be made without yeast from the
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evening of the 14th day of the first month until the evening of
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the 21st day of the month. During those seven days, there
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must be no trace of yeast in your homes.
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Anyone who eats anything made with yeast during this week will
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be cut off from the community of Israel.
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Wherever you live, eat only bread made without yeast.
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When I lived in Israel for a year during the Feast of
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Unleavened Bread, we were staying actually at a hotel
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during that time. It was a kosher hotel, and so I
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noticed the food was very different that week.
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Now, why were they asked to eat bread without leaven?
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There was a physical reason. When the Israelites left Egypt,
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they left in a hurry. We read.
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All of the Egyptians urged the people of Israel to get out of
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the land as quickly as possible. So the Israelites took their
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bread dough before the yeast was added.
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And later in the book of Deuteronomy when the Lord
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discusses the Feast of Unleavened Bread, He says for
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seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast.
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As when you escape from Egypt in such a hurry, eat this bread so
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that as long as you live you will remember the day you
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departed from Egypt. The Feast of Unleavened Bread
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teaches us that when God speaks, we need to act immediately
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without delay. And if you think about the
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Scriptures, there are lots of stories that show it can be easy
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to delay. For example, Lot's wife
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hesitated and looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the
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angels urged her to flee. In Luke Chapter 9, Jesus invited
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some people. Follow me, one man replied,
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Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say goodbye to my
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family, another man said, First, let me return home.
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Jesus responded by saying Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and
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then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.
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Once Paul was preaching to a Roman governor.
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The governor responded to Paul by saying go away.
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When it is more convenient. I'll call for you again.
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Do we ever say the same thing? When it's more convenient, I'll
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read my scriptures. When it's more convenient, I'll
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go to the temple. When it's more convenient, I'll
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serve a full time mission. Contrast these examples of delay
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with many examples of people who hurried to follow.
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For example, James and John, when called by Jesus,
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immediately followed him, leaving their boat and father
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behind. Mary hurried to the Hill Country
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to see Elizabeth. The shepherds hurried to the
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village and found the baby lying in a Manger.
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So how about us? How do we respond when God calls
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us? The Feast of Unleavened Bread
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teaches us not to delay, even if a prompting is uncomfortable or
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inconvenient. So take a moment.
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Think about your lives. What blessings have you seen by
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obeying without delay? Couple weeks ago I was going
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through a pretty rough time, not only at home but at work, and I
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hadn't been to the temple in a while.
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And so I was just thinking maybe I'll just try to go to the
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temple and see what that brings me.
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And so I went, and then the next day it almost like clicked that
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things were starting to get better and starting to like look
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up and not be gloomy anymore. And so there was a major
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blessing in my life to have that flip around.
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I love that you didn't delay. I think we can all agree that
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sometimes it's really hard if you get a prompting and maybe it
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feels uncomfortable or inconvenient to act on it.
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I remember many years ago, I lived in a small farm town,
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Nissan, Oregon. And at that time the state of
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Oregon had a really unique law, which was no one was allowed to
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pump their own gas. So we, when you went to the gas
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station, there was an attendant who pumped the gas for you.
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So I'm just there at the gas station one day the guy's
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pumping my gas, and the Holy Ghost says to me, you should ask
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this man if he knows anything about the church.
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I'm like, awful. It's kind of awkward, but, you
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know, you got to obey without delay.
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So I just said, hey, have you ever heard of the Church of
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Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?
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He said, Oh, yeah, You know, I just moved to Nyssa, but I used
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to live in a different town. And when I was there, I was
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meeting with the missionaries. And I said, oh, well, would you
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like to meet with the missionaries here?
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And he said yes. And three weeks later, he and
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his wife and child were baptized.
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I was so glad that I followed that prompting.
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But I want to follow up that story with another story.
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One time I was driving to church, and I felt prompted to
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stop by a young man in my seminary class and just check in
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on him and see if he might want to come to church with me.
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So I went to his house and knocked on the door.
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He didn't answer and that's the end of the story.
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Sometimes we're going to act on a prompting and there's going to
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be some great thing that happens in our lives and we say, oh,
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that was amazing. Sometimes we'll act on the
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prompting and we won't really see the result that we were
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hoping for. But either way, I testify that
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we're blessed when we don't delay.
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That's one of the lessons from the Feast of unmovened Bread.
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Now here's another one. On the first day of the
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festival, the Lord said, remove every trace of yeast from your
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homes. So this very day, Orthodox
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Jewish homes follow this practice.
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There'll be this great type of a very intensive spring cleaning
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to make sure there is no yeast at all in the home.
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And if you're kind of curious, you might be thinking yourself,
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wow, this is interesting. I wish I could learn more about
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the modern tradition of getting rid of all the Levin wish
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granted, I've linked to some really fun videos on the
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website. You can learn all about it.
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But what I want to focus on is we might see this as a giant
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object lesson, just as we're getting rid of all the leaven in
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our house. In Scripture, leaven represents
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sin. So I'm looking in my own life,
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doing a deep spring cleaning. How can I get rid of all the sin
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in my life? Even today in modern Orthodox
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homes, after searching for leaven right before Passover, it
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will all be burned. Am I totally getting rid of
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cleansing out any sin in my life?
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Now I do have to admit this, the holiday could seem a little
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stressful because what if I miss some Levin, Am I doomed?
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No. One of my favorite parts about
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the holiday is people involved in the ritual will say any yeast
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which I have not seen and do not know about is nullified.
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It's like saying I've done my best but I might have missed
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something. And in a similar way, we try to
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repent daily. We do the best we can, but we're
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not going to be perfect. And that's OK because as the
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psalmist said, create in me a clean heart.
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O God, renew a loyal spirit within me.
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God is the one who's creating the changed heart in his time.
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That's the spirit of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
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It's part of being marked by the blood of the Lamb is allowing
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Jesus to come in and cleanse out that leaven.
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And that takes us to the Passover.
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Just like the Feast of Unleavened Bread points us to
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Christ, so too does the Passover in many powerful ways.
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In its original context, it was time for the final plague.
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On a specific night, God was going to pass through Egypt,
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killing the first born of both people and animals.
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But some people would be passed over if the blood of a lamb, a
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Passover lamb, was on their door frames.
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Now the blood on the door frames was not something that would
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continue year after year, but the Passover feast was.
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The Lord said, remember, these instructions are a permanent law
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that you and your descendants must observe forever.
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When you enter the land the Lord has promised to give you, you
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will continue to observe this ceremony.
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Then your children will ask, what does this ceremony mean?
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And you will reply, it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord,
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for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt.
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Now we might reasonably wonder to ourselves, why don't we
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celebrate the Passover today? Because it says these
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instructions are a permanent law.
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Well, let's jump forward in time.
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More than 1000 years after the Passover, Jesus Christ and his
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disciples are celebrating A Passover meal.
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According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, almost certainly
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all of the typical elements of a Passover ceremony took place.
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But then but Jesus did something that had not been a part of any
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previous Passover. He took some bread and said,
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this bread is my body, this wine is my blood of the covenant
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which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
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So when we partake of the sacrament today, we can remember
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not only the Last Supper, but also the Passover.
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Jesus was about to become the true Passover lamb, and there
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are several ways where we can see Jesus Christ as a clear type
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in the Passover, and many of these are emphasized in the
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Gospel of John. Let's take a look.
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First, think of the title of Jesus as the Lamb of God.
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For many of us, this is just a common title for Christ, but
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actually in the Gospels, this title only appears in John.
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When John the Baptist says look, the Lamb of God who takes away
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the sins of the world, look, there is the Lamb of God.
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That's one way that we can specifically see Christ as the
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Passover lamb. A second is the fact that Jesus
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was a lamb without blemish. You remember that in Exodus 12
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it says the Passover lamb should be a year old male without
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defect. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is
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brought before Pilate and Pilate says I find no basis for a
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charge against him. Jesus is without fault, echoing
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the requirement for a Passover lamb.
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Now, this next one is kind of intricate, but to me it's really
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interesting. It has to do with the timing of
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the sacrifice. So in Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
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the Last Supper is a Passover meal.
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But in John it's different. It's clear in John that there is
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a Last Supper, but it is not the Passover because after the Last
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Supper, after Gethsemane, the next morning, we read that Jesus
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was taken to Pilot's headquarters early in the
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morning. The Jewish authorities did not
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enter the headquarters so as to avoid ritual defilement and to
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be able to eat the Passover. So can you see in this passage,
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it's very clear that the Passover is in the future?
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It's not in the past. That's even more clear a few
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verses later where we read it was the day of preparation of
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the Passover. Now here's an interesting
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insight. Philo, who is at roughly A
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contemporary, probably writing about 40 or 50AD, says the
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Passover lambs were sacrificed beginning at noon day and
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continuing till evening. Compare that with what we
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learned from the Gospel of John. It was the day of preparation of
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the Passover. It was about noon.
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Here is your king, Pilate said to the Jews.
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In other words, Christ is condemned and sent to the cross
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at the exact time Passover lambs are being slain at the temple.
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It's a powerful reminder that Jesus is the Passover lamb.
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Another that's kind of subtle is the Hyssop branch.
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So you might remember the blood on the door frames in Exodus 12,
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but did you notice that it was specific that it should be a
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bundle of hyssop branches to be used as the paintbrush?
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When Christ was on the cross, he said I am thirsty.
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And a jar of sour Ryan was sitting there.
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So they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch and
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held it up to his lips. Just as hyssop was part of the
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saving blood in Egypt, Pisip was part of Christ shedding his
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blood for our deliverance. Probably the most famous or or
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well known element of Christ as the Passover lamb is the no
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broken bones. It's interesting that the
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command do not break any of its bones.
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Speaking of the Passover lamb was specifically for after the
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lamb had been killed. Even at that point, no bones
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should be broken. And you remember on the cross
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that the Roman soldiers wanted to hasten the deaths of the
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crucifixion victim, so they broke the legs of the thieves on
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either side of Christ. But when they came to Christ,
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they found that he was already dead.
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John records these things happened in fulfilment of the
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scriptures that say not one of his bones will be broken.
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Finally, we see the blood leading to salvation.
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In Exodus, the blood of the lamb was essential for survival.
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God said when I see the blood, I will Passover you.
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This plague of death will not touch you when I strike Egypt.
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The lamb's blood provided protection from physical death,
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and in the New Testament, Paul tells us that Christ's blood
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protects us from even more. He said God made peace with
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everything by means of Christ's blood on the cross.
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And Paul is very clear. Christ, our Passover lamb has
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been sacrificed for us. So as you think of these six
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connections between Jesus Christ and the Passover lamb, you might
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be thinking yourself, wow, like this is really cool.
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I hadn't seen all of these little intricate points, but a
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person might also be thinking to themselves, OK, well, like this
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is really great. Maybe this whole, I don't know,
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help me pass some kind of test, but how does this help me in my
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life? I think the key answer to this
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question is given by the prophet Amulek in the Book of Mormon.
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He says this is the whole meaning of the law, every wit
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pointing to that great and last sacrifice, the Son of God.
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In the Passover celebration we see everything pointing to
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Christ. How about us in our religious
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worship, in our scripture study, in our prayer, in our temple, in
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our family home? Evening.
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So when I go to elders quorum or Relief Society, is every wit
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pointing me to Jesus Christ? Or am I just checking off boxes?
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Christ is the Passover lamb, reminds us that the central
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focus of all of our worship needs to be on him.
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And if I'm just going through the motions, I'm missing the
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mark. There is so much more.
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Maybe we can think about this just as an example with the
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sacrament. Sometimes we hear the question,
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how can I make the sacrament a more meaningful experience?
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I bet if we brainstorm together, we could come up with lots of
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good ideas, right? Stay off your cell phones, sing
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the hymns, think about the sacrament prayers.
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Hold the water or the bread in your mouth for an extra moment.
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And these are all great ideas. But let's go back to that
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Passover night. Do you remember that you were 14
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years old on that first Passover?
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Now it's one year in the future. You're 15 years old, you've been
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in the wilderness for a year, Moses tells the People.
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We're going to celebrate the Passover on the one year
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anniversary. Are you thinking to yourself, I
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wonder how we can make this Passover a more meaningful
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experience? My friend Stefan Tager wrote a
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great book called Ears to Hear, and I'm going to paraphrase a
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parable that he tells in this book, which by the way, I highly
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recommend this book. He says a man and his wife had
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been married for 24 years and the next day was going to be a
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very special day. Their oldest child, a daughter,
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was going to be sealed in the temple is they were getting
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ready that morning. The husband looked at his wife
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and said to her, I wonder how we can make today a really
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meaningful day. She kind of gave him a funny
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look and they went on with their day.
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A little over a year later there was another wonderful event to
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celebrate. Their oldest daughter had given
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birth to their first grandbaby. As they were driving to the
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hospital to see this precious child, the husband looked at his
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wife and said, I wonder what we can do to make this a really
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meaningful experience. Some time passed and the man's
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mother was about to pass away. As they were getting ready to go
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to the airport to fly to visit her for one last time, the
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husband said to his wife, this is the last time I'll get to see
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my mom in mortality. I wonder how we can make this a
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really meaningful experience, The wife said to her husband.
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You know, every time I hear you say that, I think to myself, you
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don't really understand what's happening here.
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You remember Jesus walking on a road, coming across 10 lepers
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begging to be healed. Jesus cleansed all of the
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lepers, 9 walked away, but one ran to Jesus, fell down at his
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feet and worshipped him. Do you think that leper was
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thinking to himself? I wonder how can I make this a
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really meaningful experience?